KM
by evenstar8705
Summary: Ziyal fantasizes about her father with Kira Nerys but after reflection and a confrontation realizes it is just a fantasy after all.


_If only Kira could become my mother for real._ Ziyal had that thought more times than she cared to keep track. Since her real mother was dead, the hybrid girl longed for someone to step into that role. She had her father back, but no mother. Sometimes she thought her father was the sole thing she needed in her universe, but as she became less of a child rapidly in the past few years, she knew in her _pagh _that wasn't true anymore. She needed so much more and her father was a busy man. No matter how much he loved her, he couldn't be with her every moment of her life.

Kira Nerys had stepped into the role herself. Ziyal had not projected that onto her. She had proven a good mother figure. First she saved Ziyal's life by persuading her father not to kill her. Twisted Cardassian honor had demanded that Dukat destroy her. Thanks to Kira and her father's good nature struggling against evil tradition, he had lowered his gun and taken her into his arms. He made a great sacrifice that day, and Ziyal was grateful for that. Nerys insisted it was no sacrifice. No father should ever get the thought in his head that he should kill his daughter, but Kira wasn't Cardassian. She was not even half like Ziyal was. She couldn't understand.

Next, Kira had offered Ziyal room and board when her father fought against the Klingon race. For an entire year, Ziyal lived with Kira on the space station as though she really was her daughter or a much younger sister. She certainly acted maternal toward the girl, fiercely attacking Garak as soon as she heard he was entertaining a relationship with Ziyal. Then she approved the relationship when she saw it made the girl happy and Garak shockingly treated her well.

Ziyal had become fond of Kira as a woman. She was beautiful, spiritual, and she was a commanding officer of the station. She didn't mind Ziyal's Cardassian half despite what Cardassians had done to the Bajoran people during and after the Occupation. She was kind and compassionate as well as tough. She could also be far more affectionate that Ziyal's mother Torah Naprem had been. Of course she had loved her biological mother almost as much as her father, but Naprem had been the parent that enforced the rules and punishments, not Dukat.

Last but not least, Dukat obviously loved Kira deeply and Ziyal found it adorable and perfect. In her eyes, her father was a hopeless romantic and not a predator. She didn't understand why Kira refused to consider the idea that she and Dukat might actually be a good match. They acted like divorced parents already the way they cooperated in raising Ziyal. When Kira suggested Bajoran schooling for her, Dukat had capitulated to her wisdom. Ziyal saw the way her father sighed every time Kira walked away. As far as she knew, he had taken no lovers after Naprem died. His Cardassian wife didn't count.

"Did my mother hate you at first too?" Ziyal asked her father playfully. "Is it just as common for Bajoran women to play hard to get as it is for Cardassian women?"

"Your mother gunned for me first," he answered. "And no, Bajoran men and women don't play power games quite like our people."

When she was young, he spoke Naprem's name like a magic incantation and he usually smiled pleasantly at the thought of her. He was incredibly serious now. Ziyal found that odd.

"I miss her," she whispered.

"I do too."

Dukat clasped his daughter's hand with a sigh. Ziyal knew he was sincere and some of her doubts flew away and she swelled with relief.

"Do you remember when we all slept together in the same bed, father?"

"Yes," that memory did make him smile.

"I think I slept in bed with you and mother more often than I ever did alone. That was wonderful for me as a child. It must have been frustrating for you both though. I robbed you of your privacy."

"Ziyal, your mother and I were grateful for every minute we had with you," Dukat declared.

Once again, she swelled. Dukat sure knew how to make his little girl happy. She kissed the hand clasping hers. She left unsaid her memories didn't quite support his statement. She also didn't tell him she was seeing Garak as soon as she left.

Garak was able to smuggle himself to the station for a few minutes while her father was about to board a transport to Cardassia for an obligatory visit. Not even Kira or Odo knew. He was risking a lot, but he was probably up to something other than catching a glimpse of Ziyal. She knew better than to ask what.

She passed Kira on the way, giving instructions to some Jem'Hadar and looking stoic. Ziyal knew how she felt about the Dominion. The hybrid girl stopped to give her a quick hug and kiss and cheer her up. Kira flashed Ziyal a smile as she returned the affection three fold. She wished her skin was just like the Bajoran woman's so soft and smooth. Ziyal's strange skin wasn't quite like a Cardassian's scales or a Bajoran's and so it was pale gray and flaked often. She required quite a beauty routine at night to keep it somewhat tolerable. She almost called Kira 'mother' and stopped her impulse just in time.

_I am such a foolish little girl! _She scolded herself for that. The night before she dreamed she was a child again. Dukat tucked her into bed as Kira sang a Bajoran lullaby just like her real mother. She pretended to be asleep but peeked from behind half closed lids as Dukat passionately kissed Kira and began to carry her in his arms toward the master bedroom. Ziyal giggled to herself in her bed and the very next night, her loving parents announced that she would finally be getting a sibling! It was such a happy dream.

"Why didn't you have siblings?" Garak asked after she described the dream to him.

"My mother couldn't bear children after me. Hybrid births are rare and dangerous."

"Well, you do have half-siblings," he reminded her.

"Yes, but they wouldn't want to have anything to do with me," Ziyal said sadly.

"I wasn't trying to upset you."

"I know, Garak."

He was silent and always uncomfortable when she spoke of her father. She knew some of their sordid history and that if Dukat found Garak on the station right now, he'd have him arrested and executed by the Dominion. She told herself that maybe he'd find a way to ignore him or work with him somehow. Their former troubles were in the ugly past. Both her father and her lover were different men today and the future wasn't set in stone.

"Talk to me," she stroked Garak's hand and begged with her eyes. "What is on your mind? I'm not asking about the mission, just what you think about me and what I'm saying."

"Things better left unsaid, my poor Ziyal," he responded.

She knew he was always right, but she didn't care, "Don't coddle me, Garak. Say it or I won't speak to you ever again!"

They hadn't been a couple long, but she had learned to sharpen and utilize the greatest gift her father could pass to her through his blood. She had his charm amplified by feminine wiles and a sincere heart. She could sense Garak was lonelier than she was. Once she got him alone with her, she had him wrapped around her finger and she knew it. Charm and a sweet face had kept her alive all these years. Furthermore, she suspected Garak was a good man despite his lies about himself.

"Ziyal, you just told me that your father's words and your memories don't match. Which ones?"

"Well, I remember he looked a bit irritated at my mother whenever she let me crawl into bed with them. She'd ignore him. I heard them argue when they thought I couldn't hear. I let them think my ears were like a Bajoran's and not as strong as a Cardassian's so I eavesdropped."

"You are your father's daughter," Garak smiled faintly. "What did they say?"

"Father insisted I was old enough to stay in my room. He accused mother of snuffing out my nightlight so I'd get a nightmare and crawl into their bed. My eyesight isn't as good as a Cardassian so I can't see in the dark. It terrified me when I was very little. She didn't deny it so he got very angry at her. I kissed him the next morning and told him I'd stop having nightmares and keep to myself so they wouldn't have to fight."

"Did you?"

"I still had them sometimes, but I learned to handle them like a big girl. I didn't want to disappoint my father. He became so proud!"

"And your mother?"

"She told me she was proud too, but she seemed noticeably haggard in the mornings after that. Maybe she had nightmares without me?"

"I would have nightmares if I were a Bajoran woman sleeping next to your father every night," Garak blurted.

Ziyal gave him a piercing glance and he shrugged sheepishly. She didn't like what he said but he had warned her. To his surprise, she continued vocalizing her thoughts.

"Mother seemed somehow more relaxed when father was gone. I just realized that. Maybe she wanted me in bed at night with them so she could sleep. Father must have kept her up longer than she liked. She…"

Ziyal's eyes widened in distress as she trailed off. Garak squeezed her hand desperately, trying to take her mind away.

"Ziyal, don't dwell on this nonsense, please!"

"I don't think my mother enjoyed being alone with father," she gasped. "At least that part of their marriage-"

"Your parents were never married," Garak corrected.

"Relationship then, she never cared for that aspect of their relationship."

"Well she must not have wanted a doomed pregnancy," Garak made up an excuse.

"Don't do that!" Ziyal snapped. "She was on birth control, not completely barren or sterilized. I watched her take it daily in capsule form."

"Ziyal-"

"_What if my mother didn't love my father after all_?"

Garak winced as he felt her hand grow cold and clammy. She had a thousand yard stare in her normally twinkling eyes that matched Dukat's. This was exactly the sort of thing that Garak had wanted to avoid! Whatever he had in place of a heart ached for his half reptilian half Bajoran angel.

"We will never know for certain. She might have loved him. What did your mother say about it?"

"Hardly anything. But now I remember their worst fight. It was about a painting of all things."

"Oh?" Garak found this seemingly insignificant thing quite the opposite.

"My father kept a large and original painting in the living room of our quarters. It was of Bajoran landscaping and it had the initials KM. Mother hated it and demanded that he sell it but father refused."

"KM? I wonder who that could be? How long had he kept it? What else do you know of it?"

"He said he had kept the painting longer than my mother. I never saw him get so defensive of a subject or so possessive of an object. Mother seemed to be jealous! I don't know why."

Ziyal struggled to remember more as Garak got silent again. She knew it must mean he had already solved the mystery in his mind. She pulled his face into her hands before he could retreat and kissed him. She utterly disarmed and disoriented him.

"You must tell me, Garak!" she kissed him over and over. "Tell me who KM is!"

"Ziyal, don't torture me like this!" the Cardassian man cried.

"Tell me!"

"Ziyal, you can solve the riddle on your own. You are more than capable and I can't bear to say it!"

Garak twisted himself away and fled from Ziyal's eyes and sweet embrace. He never should have allowed himself to get close to her! What had he been thinking throughout the affair? He had no idea it would be the last time he saw her.

Ziyal almost chased after him but her noggin was working furiously now like a Cardassian's. The painting was of Bajor and the initials looked fine and subtle. It was the work of a true artist. What Cardassian pursued art seriously or focused on any subject but Cardassia? Her father must have had a Bajoran friend.

Her heart began to sink. He had no Bajoran friends only Collaborators and lovers. Torah Naprem couldn't have been the first Bajoran he kept. Her father insisted her mother wasn't a comfort woman. She was a worker assigned to Terok Nor, but maybe he used the system he regulated himself as Prefect of Bajor.

"No!" she said aloud. "He wouldn't do that, would he?"

She decided she had to confront him about this. Maybe he could explain. She called him from the station and he seemed pleased to speak to her again so soon upon landing on their home planet. Cardassia Prime, a place she had never been to and never would step foot on.

"Father!" she said frantically. "Who is KM?"

"I beg your pardon?" Dukat's face went flat.

"I recalled today the painting you kept. The artist initials were just KM and mother hated it. Did you know that it is exactly what inspired me to paint and become an artist myself? Who was the person that created it and what became of their painting?"

Dukat stared at her for what seemed an eon. Her skin grew cold again. She could tell he was carefully constructing a response. She braced herself. He better not be trying to lie. She'd be unable to accept that.

"Ziyal, what in the world prompted this?"

"Answer the question, father!"

"I can't do that."

"What?" Ziyal was completely flabbergasted.

"The artist must remain anonymous. It was their wish. The painting was destroyed anyway."

"By whom? Was it you?"

"No."

"It was mother, wasn't it?"

His stone cold silence was confirmation.

"Why did she hate it so?" Ziyal felt tears burning at her ducts.

"Ask her."

"She's dead, father!" her tears burst onto her cheeks at that terrible response.

"You don't think I know that?"

"Father, why are you being like this?"

"Like what?" he cocked his head.

Once again, Ziyal was stunned by his flippant attitude. She had never seen this side of him before. She asked for the artists name one last time.

"All you need to know is the artist died before I met your mother, Ziyal. Goodbye."

"Don't end the transmission, fa-"

He did just that. Ziyal's brain went into overdrive. The artist must have been a Bajoran woman during the Occupation. She was from a caste of artists. She was likely her father's previous comfort woman. She died and her memory was treasured by him. Why else would he guard that painting so?

KM. She knew a Bajoran surname that began with a K. Kira. Kira Nerys had mentioned several times she had a mother that died during the Occupation. She was a relatively famous icon painter. Her first name had been Meru!

Ziyal curled into a ball on her bed. She was crying and angry and disillusioned. She was torn between denial and revelation. KM was Kira Meru. No wonder her father was so obsessed with Kira Nerys.

"They must never be!" she finally realized. "Never."


End file.
